


Fortune Favors the Bold

by Medeafic



Series: Circus [7]
Category: Glee RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Circus, Circus, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The troupe do their best for the fundraiser, and Lea attempts to set a Guinness World Record.  Opening night brings out the jitters, but Chris is sure they can rise to the occasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortune Favors the Bold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faberryspork (jaymamazing)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaymamazing/gifts), [pippin004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippin004/gifts).



> _________________________________________________________________
> 
> Warnings: Mention of rehab for addiction; small amount of blood.  
> _________________________________________________________________

“And you  _have_  to take me into Hollywood.”  
  
“I will, Zach. I will.” It’s their second night in LA, and Zach has been talking non-stop ever since load-in yesterday afternoon, pausing only to sleep and eat. He’s never been to Los Angeles before, and he has a lot of plans for their time there. Hollywood Boulevard, the Santa Monica pier, studio tours…the list seems endless.  
  
Chris, whose time has been spent setting up the Big Top, practicing his tumbling for the opening act, and meal prep, is exhausted. Zach’s done a lot today too, but his energy hasn’t wavered. Chris picks through his dinner, wondering why everything seems less tasty tonight. He’s pretty sure it’s not Karl’s cooking – or his own.  
  
It’s just that Chris is worried.  
  
Practice with Zach has been going well. Everyone seems to think so. Everyone but Chris. They  _still_  haven’t come up with a cohesive performance story, which Chris thinks is just as vital as the technical skill of the act. As the Heavenly Twins, he and Dianna used to base their acts on Greek myths, but Chris wants to move away from that. And it’s the technical skills that are the other big problem. He took his concerns to Dianna that morning, as director for the fundraiser.  
  
“Are you sure you’re not second-guessing yourself?” she’d asked hopefully. “Zach seems to think you’re both great."  
  
“We totally are!” Zach agreed.  
  
“Seven in ten.” Chris said, and Di understood at once. A seventy per cent catching rate was unacceptable for Greenwood’s. She’d sighed, rubbed her temples, and nodded.  
  
“Chris is right,” she told Zach, and added over his complaints, “ _Maybe_  at eight in ten, but no way at seven, and you’re already under too much pressure. I need fly trap for opening night, that’s non-negotiable, so focus on performing there. That gives you an extra week. As for the fundraiser - Zach, maybe you can do aerial hoop?”  
  
Chris had come away feeling half relieved and half like he was wriggling out of something just because he was afraid of failure. He’d done the right thing, though, and Di’s reaction confirmed it for him. Even if he  _did_  feel like a coward.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Chris is summoned to Bruce’s RV after dinner. He goes, feeling the familiar sense of being caught out for something, but on arrival Bruce just gestures him to the sofa, and pulls up a chair opposite. He leans forward and clasps his hands, dips his head.  
  
“Chris.”  
  
Chris waits, until ease gives way to tension, building up the longer Bruce is silent. “ _What?_ ” he demands.  
  
“There’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to do it.” Bruce rummages in a pocket and hands out a crumpled piece of paper. When he smoothes it out, Chris reads his father’s name and an address and phone number in Bruce’s handwriting.  
  
He looks up. He knows what it is, and it seems pointless asking anything else, but Bruce begins talking, explaining himself, and Chris realizes then that Bruce is nervous. There’s a long introduction about how Bruce didn’t want to intrude, but he felt compelled to track down Bob Pine after the accident. “Like I said, if it were me, I would want to know about what happened to Di, hear she was okay. So I found him, but I never contacted him, because…”  
  
“Because it’s not your place.”  
  
“Because it’s not my place,” Bruce agrees. “The address is a rehab clinic, Chris. He’s still there, as of last week. I don’t know if that will make any difference to you.”  
  
“Not particularly.” Bruce looks troubled, so Chris elaborates. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It makes no difference to me because he’s my dad whether he’s in rehab or whether he’s lying in a ditch with nothing or whether he’s…whether he’s dead. Which is what I thought. So I guess this is an improvement.” He looks at the paper again, the way the ink has bled at the edge of each stroke of the pen. “I don’t know if it will make a difference to Di, though.”  
  
“That’s why I decided to give it to you. You should tell her, give her the option of contacting him, but choose your moment. You’re all under enormous pressure right now.”  
  
“She’s not going to want to see him, no matter when I tell her.”  
  
“And that’s her choice. But she still deserves to know where he is. Perhaps I’m taking a coward’s way out by placing it on your shoulders, and I’m sorry if I am. It seemed like the best course of action.”  
  
Chris fingers the paper, reads the address again although it’s already seared into his mind. “It’s back east.”  
  
“If you want time off to travel there—”  
  
Chris stands up, cutting him off. He can’t talk about it any more. He needs time to think it over. “Thanks, Bruce. I need to go shower.” If he hurries, he might even catch Zach still naked and wet from the shower he said he was going to take. The thought is less erotic than it is comforting. At the door, he turns. “Thank you,” he says again. “Really. I appreciate it.”  
  
Zach has finished his shower, but is only wearing a towel when Chris returns. “What did the Green Man want?” he asks, pulling out a pair of boxer shorts.  
  
“Nothing important.” Chris grabs Zach’s boxers out of his hand and throws them back in the drawer.  
  
Zach grins. “Thought you wanted a shower, too?”  
  
“I can shower later.” Right now, Chris needs to take his mind off things. He prods Zach backwards towards the bed. “Besides, you’ll need to shower again once I’m done with you.”  
  
Zach laughs as he collapses back on the sheets, his towel giving way. Chris strips, but makes sure to fold the paper Bruce gave him, and secure it in his wallet.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Chris is not the only worried member of the Greenwood’s troupe, and that becomes clear at lunch a few days later. The chatter among the rest of the company dies down as Di snaps, “You  _said_  I could have complete creative control.” She’s sitting with Bruce and Simon at the next table along from Chris and Zach.  
  
“This is not an issue of the creative direction,” Bruce tells her, his voice louder than usual.  
  
Lea, sitting next to Dianna, sets her cutlery neatly together on the plate and folds her hands in her lap, staring fixedly at the salt shaker in front of her. Anton is at the table too, for some reason. Usually he sticks with the clowns or Zoë. His presence becomes clear when he says, “Bruce, I  _swear_  we’ll be safe about it. You let me do it all last season until I took  _one_  little tumble—”  
  
“I said  _no_.” Bruce points his fork at Anton. “You are not unbreakable, kid. And you’re not doing it. No Cossack drag. End of story.”  
  
John, sitting opposite Chris, gives a quiet little cheer. “Go Bruce,” he whispers. “ _Ow._ ” He turns to glare at Zoë, who must have kicked him under the table.  
  
“We’re never going to bring in funding if we can’t show off our best tricks,” Dianna says, desperation in her tone. She shoots a pleading look at Simon, who ignores it and keeps eating.  
  
“You have Lea, and you have Zach and Chris.” Bruce goes back to his lunch, dismissing the conversation.  
  
“Zach and Chris aren’t flying for the fundraiser. We  _need_  another draw card, apart from Lea.”  
  
Chris feels the heat rising in his cheeks. He turns to Zach. “Maybe—”  
  
“No,” Zach says, and rubs Chris’s thigh in a gesture both arousing and reassuring. “You were right, although I didn’t like it at the time. If we’re showcasing, I don’t want to showcase missing your hands twenty percent of the time.” By now, they’ve managed to improve their ratio to eight in ten.  
  
“You’ll just have to figure something out,” Bruce is saying to Di. He stands up, his meal half-eaten. “ _Without_  compromising safety. I’ll leave you all to it.” He takes his plate with him when he goes, and Dianna looks guilty as he exits the mess tent.  
  
“It was worth a shot, Di,” Simon says, his good humor not affected by the tense scene. “But I did warn you.”  
  
Di stabs her fork through a green bean.  
  
Chris and Zach decide to take time out, and spend the afternoon ambling down Hollywood Boulevard along the Walk of Fame, reading each star. Every time Zach comes across a name he doesn’t know, he Googles it on his phone and informs Chris of his findings. But Chris has a hard time concentrating. They run into Lea and Dianna outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The girls are trying to fit their hands into Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell’s hand prints.  
  
“My fingers are too long,” Dianna complains, and Chris can see by the wicked gleam in Lea’s eye that she’s about to say something he doesn’t want to hear. He coughs, loudly, and they turn to look up at him. Zach is busy measuring his feet against Frank Sinatra’s.  
  
The way both girls smile up at him, Lea with her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and Dianna’s free around her face, he could see them as movie stars, caught in time in a black and white photograph, immortalized on film and in cement.  
  
“Help me up,” Di says, and extends her hand. Lea jumps up and wanders off to find Judy Garland. “Remember when we came here as kids?”  
  
“Yeah. We had to put our hands in every single print in front of the theatre. Drove mom and dad  _crazy_.”  
  
They trade more childhood memories as they walk among the hands and feet of stars, many of them dead now, but never forgotten. Di doesn’t use a single curse word when talking about Dad, and Chris starts to think that maybe this is the time, this is his moment to tell her.  
  
Di says, “I need to talk to you about something,” and it startles him.  
  
“Okay. What?”  
  
“The fundraiser.”  
  
Of course. The fundraiser. As if Dianna has anything else on her mind these days. “Sure. What do you need?”  
  
“Well,  _you_. It’s unfair to ask, I know, but the thing is—”  
  
The thing is, Dianna needs a draw card, and while Lea is going to be spectacular, she was counting on Anton’s Cossack drag to be the other big thrill of the night, since fly trap was cancelled. “I thought maybe you could do aerial silks?” she says.  
  
“Sure,” he says, frowning. “Of course. But silks aren’t exactly  _thrilling_.” It doesn’t take him long to work out her thought process. “Oh. Silks aren’t thrilling, but it’s  _me_  they’ll want to see. Because there’s a chance I might screw up again.”  
  
“You didn’t screw up; it was an accident,” Di says immediately, and then bites her lip. “But, yeah. I thought we could cash in on our joint notoriety.”  
  
Chris looks across to where Lea is ordering Zach into a ridiculous pose in front of the theatre so she can take a photograph of him.  
  
“For Zach,” Di says.  
  
“For Zach.” He smiles. “And for Lea. You know, I never in my life wished for  _another_  annoying kid sister. But now I’ve tried it, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”  
  
He’s not expecting the hug when it comes, but he hides his nose in her hair and clings to her. When she pulls back, he wants to hold on tight, feel her solid and warm and  _alive_.  
  
But he lets her go. “Ugh,” he says, covering for his too-bright eyes. “Cooties.”  
  
She smiles, and messes up his hair.  
  
  
***  
  
  
“I just don’t know if it was the best approach, that’s all I’m saying,” Chris murmurs to Zach. It’s Fundraiser Night. They’re standing in the quietest corner of the Big Top they can find, surveying the crowd. “They all look really uncomfortable.”  
  
Di has somehow convinced the ring crew into acting as servers and kitchen hands for the night, to cut the cost of hiring staff or caterers. Karl’s crew has been cooking all day, and in between practice, Zach and Chris have run to help with a range of hors d’oeuvres. Most of ring crew look ill at ease in their simple white shirts and black pants, although Eric, Chris notices, cleans up  _very_  nicely when he’s not in his usual overalls and covered in sweat, grease or sawdust.  
  
“The guests seem to be getting a kick out of it,” Zach points out, which is true. Chris cynically thinks it’s because their guests – the most affluent and influential Angelenos – enjoy rubbing shoulders with the circus folk to feel involved, making a difference, contributing to the arts.  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
“You should try to look a little more receptive to cash, and a little less disdainful,” Zach advises. “At least until our generous patrons have opened their wallets.”  
  
“Or at least until Dianna’s not looking,” Lea adds. “She’s a bit stressed.”  
  
Some of the troupe members have invited family members or friends tonight. No one has come for Lea – or Zach, either. His widowed mother has been ill, and his brother, Joe, couldn’t get time off work. “I’m sorry,” Chris had said, when he read the email over Zach’s shoulder a few days ago. Zach had shrugged it off.  
  
“I’m just worried about Mom. I’m glad Joe’s there to look after her, but it makes me feel guilty sometimes, being so far away.”  
  
Still, it’s nice to watch others interacting with their loved ones tonight. Lea folds her hands in front of her linen practice outfit, and gives a bright smile into the crowd.  
  
“You look like a tattered Stepford wife,” Zach tells her.  
  
“I’m on my best behavior.”  
  
Chris has to laugh. Only an hour earlier he witnessed his sister have a complete meltdown outside her trailer over Lea’s outfit for the fundraiser – a plaid A-line skirt and a sweater, headband keeping her hair in place. “I’m trying to look professional!” Lea had protested in confusion.  
  
“No, no,  _no_ , Lea!” Di wailed, walking her back towards the trailer. “Oh, my God, this is going to be a disaster. One of your performance outfits, go-go-go! You need to look dangerous and – and  _unhinged_.”  
  
“ _Someone’s_  unhinged,” Zach had murmured in Chris’s ear. They were both wearing Di-approved leotards, leggings and muted performance make-up. The sight of Zach in eyeliner has always made everything else secondary as far as Chris is concerned, so he’d taken Di’s control-freak attitude in stride.  
  
“No-one’s going to pledge any extra watching a  _schoolgirl_ ,” Di continued, nagging until Lea scooted back into her trailer to change.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Zach said. “I’m told schoolgirls have their charms.” He waggled his eyebrows at Chris for a moment before Di whirled on him, glaring like a Gorgon. “Uh, so, does Karl need us to help with the food again?” he asked quickly.  
  
“Oh,  _God_. The  _food_.” With that, Di and her various clipboards, each with a pen swinging from a piece of string, took off in the opposite direction.  
  
“She’s such a drama queen,” Lea whispered to them, her head appearing out of the nearest window. “Do I have to put on the make-up too?”  
  
“Yes,” Chris and Zach had said together. If they did, she definitely did.  
  
Looking at her now in the Big Top, Chris thinks Lea has the unhinged look down pat – her bright public smile and stiff posture are at odds with the artistically ragged practice linens, the same she wore the first day she showed the troupe what she could do. Ah, well. Di seems placated.  
  
She’s done a fantastic job with the Big Top for the night. It’s lit across the canopy with twinkling string lights and the central ring has been made larger tonight. Eric’s crew have moved back the seats to provide more room, and have set up performance stages within the audience area. The guests are noisy, their chatter rising over the background jazz of the circus band. There are a number of plasticized faces, and a higher proportion of blondes than Chris would expect to find in the general population.  Costumed members of the troupe are scattered among them, making conversation.  
  
Eric comes by with a platter of food and a cheeky grin. “Think the Green Man will pay me overtime for this gig?” he asks.  
  
“How’s Karl holding up?” Chris asks.  
  
“You know Karl. He works best under fire. Besides, I’ve got John on Quality Assurance, so if Karl sends out any severed fingers by accident, we’ve got it covered. Try one of these. They’re  _good_.” Zach takes one of the prosciutto-wrapped figs from Eric’s platter, but both Chris and Lea are too nervous to eat.  
  
“Is he here yet?” Lea asks.  
  
Zach checks his watch. “Six minutes and twenty-two seconds that time. A new record!” At Lea’s wretched expression, he pulls her in for a one-armed hug. “Calm yourself, child. We don’t even know what this Guinness guy looks like.”  
  
Di passes by with a hissed, “ _Circulate!_ ” She’s been working the Big Top like a pro, ensuring champagne flutes continue a steady progression through the crowd. Anton has dressed her in his version of top hat and tails for women – a fitted bodysuit, white waistcoat, tailed black satin jacket and a miniature top hat with a froth of black tulle. Chris did not approve of the fine-mesh fishnets, but no one seemed to care about his opinion – not even Zach, who said that spectacular legs always deserved fishnets.  
  
“She’s pushing herself too much,” Chris says with a frown. “Do you think I can make her sit down for a bit? And those stupid shoes – why didn’t Zoë just give her a pair of stilettos?”  
  
“What are you, eighty-five?” Zach asks. “They’re just kitten heels, she looks amazing, and she’ll be fine.”  
  
“She’ll be wearing flats for the performance,” Lea tells him, and Chris gives her a grateful look. She pulls at his hand, leading him into the crowd. “We can help now by doing what she says. The sooner we get the money, the sooner we can kick them out.”  
  
Chris does his best. He’s cornered by a notorious and tipsy heiress, and only escapes by promising to call the number she presses into his hand. After that, he talks to a famous film director, several philanthropists and an East Coast producer who bitches the whole time about how Greenwood’s is lucky he happened to be booked in LA this week, or else he wouldn’t have come.  
  
Chris is reaching the limit of his patience by then. He just hates feeling like he’s on display: a show horse prancing around the ring like a less-impressive Ulysses. All these non-Circus people crowded into the performance ring – it has a hint of profanity. The ring is sacred ground, not meant to be trampled across by media moguls, entrepreneurs, celebrities.  
  
Then Di drags him outside to be interviewed by a local media outfit, who shine a spotlight right into their eyes and ask if she’s fully recovered from her tragic accident.  
  
Di somehow manages a response that publicizes the circus and avoids mentioning the accident, and then says, “But the thing I’m most excited about is introducing our newest company members to our LA patrons. As you know, Lea Michele will attempt to make her mark on Guinness World Records tonight.”  
  
The reporter gives Chris a shark-like look, sensing a better story, but Di steers the conversation into a puff piece.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says to him afterwards. “I should’ve known they’d ask about that.”  
  
“It’s okay,” he says. He’s beginning to accept it will follow him for the rest of his life. It will always be his story. “And thanks for glossing over it.”  
  
She squeezes his arm. “There’s nothing to tell, anyway. They’re just looking for drama.”  
  
“Hell, that’s the idea, right? We should’ve played it up. It’d sell more seats for opening night, at least.”  
  
Di sucks in a long breath. “There’s publicity and then there’s throwing you to the wolves.”  
  
“How do you think we’re doing?”  
  
“I have no idea.” A frown creases her brow, and she fidgets with her top hat. “Simon’s keeping a tally of the pledges, but most of them haven’t come in yet. Listen, Bruce is up next, so you’d better go set up for your act. You’re on after his speech.”  
  
Chris only half-listens to Bruce’s speech as he double-checks his aerial silks and preps his hands and feet with rosin. Lea and Zach, “the newest members of our family,” are formally introduced to the crowd, including an impressive run-down of their past experience. A brief recount of some of the troupe’s best performances in the lead-up to LA, and then Chris hears his own name.  
  
“Our much-loved Chris Pine is back in the air with Zach as his new partner, while we all have Dianna Agron to thank for this fantastic night so far. I wanted to send out for beer and pizza, but she talked me down.”  
  
A swell of social chuckles drowns the murmur that began at the mention of his name.  
  
“Di is still performing – you’ll see her tonight, in fact – but she’s also helped recently with some corporate responsibilities. Simon and I are particularly grateful for her electronic media savvy…” Chris concentrates on his silks, barely registering Bruce’s joke about Twitter and Facebook versus smoke signals and carrier pigeons.  
  
“And now we have Chris performing on aerial silks. It’s a preview of the greater performance he’s choreographing for opening night, and Chris has asked us not to judge  _too_  harshly since he’s still working on it. We enjoy leaving things to the eleventh hour here at Greenwood’s. I’m told panic spurs on creativity.”  
  
Polite laughter fades as the lights go down and a spotlight picks him out. Chris is performing on a stage constructed for the night, set back from the ring in the audience area. He begins with a standard French climb, appraising his grip before he makes his way up the fabric.  
  
The test of the silks is to make the performance look as simple and elegant as possible for those watching. For Chris, it’s entirely effort: straining tendons and muscles, clenching fingers and toes. He fights to control his breath, keep it even – he learned that from Lea. Master his breathing, and his nervous system should follow suit. That’s the plan, anyway.  
  
Chris can hear applause as he moves through his routine, swings into a foot-drop, hanging by his feet alone from the silk wrapped around his ankles. Now he’s supposed to re-wrap and perform a controlled slide to the ground with the silks around his arms, fluttering as though they’re wings. He’s halfway down when he looks out into the spotlight, blind to the audience but knowing that they’re watching, and pauses.  
  
Climbing higher again, Chris performs a final arabesque because Zach will never shut up about how amazing his ass looks in that position, and then readies the silks for a head-first descent. He arranges himself with arms spread to the side and toes pointed together. From below, it should look like he’s mid-dive.  
  
He waits several beats and then plummets downward, the spotlight following him and the sibilant whisper of the silks loud in his ears, as loud as the gasp from the spectators. Several yards from the bottom he stops, staring at the base of the stage, and hangs for a moment in space.  
  
Inside, Chris feels the calm certainty he gets when he knows a routine is right, like a lopsided lump reshaping itself into a perfect, shiny ball. He releases his legs and lets himself float down to the stage, steps away from the silks, and takes his bow.  
  
“Thank you, Chris,” Bruce says from the ring, sounding slightly unnerved. “Yes. Alright. I think we can all agree that was a spectacular performance showing the grace and discipline of the artists we engage here at Greenwood’s. As all our patrons are aware…”  
  
The stage is dark now, lit only by the ambient light from the ring, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. Chris feels cheerful as he waits for Eric or one of the ring crew to let down the silks from the rigging so he can pack them up.  
  
“Christopher.”  
  
“Dianna.” Her white waistcoat is glowing in the dim light, making her appear disembodied as she steps up onto the platform to stand with him. Bruce’s speech has stopped, and Simon is stepping up now to tell a round of funny stories about their travels.  
  
“Is  _that_  going to be the routine?” Di asks. “Dropping like that?”  
  
“Looks like. It felt right. Did it look right? It  _must_  have looked right. Sometimes you just  _know_ , you know?” He’s babbling, overcome with elation.  
  
Di gropes for his hands in the darkness. It’s as if her mood seeps into him as soon as their hands clasp.  
  
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and then he understands. “Oh. No, it’s not like that.” They’re standing so close to each other now, face to face, that he can pick out her features.  
  
“Promise me.”  
  
“I promise. It wasn’t a bad thing, falling like that.”  
  
“Because you could stop it?”  
  
“Yeah. Because I controlled it. And hey, I gave you your thrilling moment, right?”  
  
She squeezes his fingers and leans forward to kiss his cheek, he thinks, but instead she whispers in his ear, “I’m sorry for being mean. For taking things out on you. For never truly forgiving you.”  
  
He swallows hard against the way his throat is closing, sore. “I’m sorry I dropped you,” he manages to get out.  
  
“It wasn’t your fault—”  
  
“Di—”  
  
“Let me finish. It  _wasn’t_  your fault, but sometimes I acted like it was because I had to blame someone for things to make sense. But sometimes bad things just happen. I’m sorry and I love you and I forgive you.”  
  
It feels to Chris, for a moment, like he’s flying again. He has the same soaring sensation in the center of his chest, lifting him up and carrying him into the sky. He lets out a long, slow sigh, as though his lungs are finally able to relax, like whatever he’s been breathing in over the last year is what’s been keeping him heavy and grounded.  
  
Di clears her throat and adds, “I hope you can forgive me, too, for the way I’ve treated you.”  
  
Their hands are entwined, clutching on to each other and smiling even though Chris can see tears shining in Dianna’s eyes in the dim light. “Of course I forgive you,” he says roughly, and gives a big sniff.  
  
“Then we’d better get off this stage, because Zach’s up next.”  
  
Chris glances up to see Zach bouncing on his toes at the foot of the steps, pretending not to watch them. Eric is already winching Zach’s hoop down from the rigging above them, giving them a wave as they look up.  
  
“He’s going to get marks all over that tuxedo shirt,” Di says. “Oh, well.”  
  
Chris unclips his silks and bundles them into a ball as Zach jumps up onto the platform.  
  
“You guys, I love and worship you, but I really, really,  _really_  need the stage now,” Zach says, his words coming out in a big rush. Di gives him a quick kiss for luck and Chris gives him a slow one with tongue to settle him down, and then they make their way back to the ring. Two minutes later, the spotlight settles on Zach’s supple, languid frame draped over the hoop, several feet in the air.  
  
Aerial hoop is an elegant art, but, like silks, there’s not much thrill in it. Most of the time when Chris watches hoop performances, he's reminded of ballet: ballet performed in a hula-hoop. It sets off his sense of the ridiculous.  
  
He should have known to expect the unexpected with Zach. Zach rejuvenates the art with his humor and his gift for storytelling through body language. Chris finds himself caught up in the comedy of the performance, as Zach acts out a one-sided love story. He’s shy at first, bashful, but ends up flailing around on the hoop in rapid-fire tricks as he attempts to draw the attention of his invisible love interest below. The crowd’s laughter is as loud as Chris has ever heard for John and the clowns.  
  
At the back of Chris’s mind, an idea stirs.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lea’s world record attempt is the grand finale of the evening. Di is preparing for her speech, and Zach is caught up talking to patrons about his hoop performance, so Chris seeks Lea out alone. It’s not hard, even in the crowd. She’s moving among pockets of small-talkers, flitting from one group to the next and leaving sparks of nervous energy behind her like a comet trail.  
  
“I met him,” she hisses, when Chris grabs her arm to slow her down. “The Guinness guy.  He  _hates_  me.”  
  
“That seems…unlikely,” Chris says, figuring a white lie is acceptable in this situation. Lea flashes a desperate smile at a passerby that makes her look deranged. “Calm down, okay? Deep breaths. Di’s speaking next. Look, here she comes.” He turns Lea by the shoulders to face the podium. “Deep breaths, Lea.” He pulls her closer so she can feel his own chest and breathes with her, expand, contract, expand, contract.  
  
For her first public speaking event, Chris thinks Dianna does well. She’s nervous, but the nerves make her that much more charming to the audience. Once the pleasantries are out of the way, she starts talking about Lea. “As you all know, Lea Michele is being observed tonight by an official record adjudicator for Guinness World Records. By the end of tonight, she’ll be the first female impalement artist to have successfully undertaken the Veiled Wheel.” Lea shudders under Chris’s fingers as the audience applauds. There’s a buzz among the media attendants, cameramen shouldering their equipment and photographers adjusting lenses, but at Di’s next words a hush falls over the crowd.  
  
“I’d like to take a few moments to celebrate risks, because that’s what we do here at Greenwood’s every day – we take risks. Artistic, financial, personal risks. We do it because that’s who we are, and maybe because we’re all a little bit crazy.” She pauses to allow the crowd to laugh. When it dies down, Di grips the podium and looks up with a serious expression. “Sometimes those risks don’t pay off. I’d like to take this opportunity to put to rest some rumors I’ve been hearing tonight. My brother, Chris Pine, was not to blame for my accident in any way. I took a risk. I fell. The end.”  
  
Chris cannot move, his eyes glued to Dianna but not really seeing her. He’s aware of squeezing Lea too hard by the shoulders, but she doesn’t complain, just rests her hands on his. Zach appears next to him, sliding an arm around his waist.  
  
There are a few hollers from the back. Eric calls, “Bloody oath!”; John, “Right on!”; Karl whoops his agreement and claps. The rest of the troupe start applauding as well, and then the invited guests, giving disapproving looks at each other that seem to say,  _Who on earth would ever think such a thing?_ Chris knows exactly who, because the chatter tonight has occasionally petered out when he passed by. Those patrons are the ones who now look most outraged at the idea.  
  
“As you can see,” Di says once the noise dies down, “Chris has our full support and love. My brother and I took risks together and one day we came out on the wrong side. But don’t feel sorry for me, because I  _still_  have that itch to take chances, so tonight I’ll be playing target girl for Lea. Fortune favors the bold. So without any further ado, please welcome Lea Michele.” The spotlight swings to the front track where the wheel has been set up to allow for the distance Lea needs. The crowd parts as Dianna makes her way over to the wheel, where she swaps her shoes for ballet flats.  
  
Lea doesn’t move.  
  
“You’re up,” Chris murmurs in her ear. She whirls around to face him.  
  
“I can’t. I’m going to kill her in front of all these people.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” He gives an apprehensive chuckle. “That’s not going to happen.”  
  
“I can’t  _do_  this,” she insists.  
  
Chris has never seen her eyes so wide and terrified. He can see white all around the rich brown irises. People are turning towards them now with expectant faces. “Lea,” he whispers, “Dianna has faith in you.”  
  
“What about you? Do you have faith in me?”  
  
“Absolutely.” He can see she wants to believe him, but doesn’t quite. “I wouldn’t let Di up there otherwise, would I?”  
  
Dianna is waiting by the wheel, wide smile beginning to stick as the seconds tick by. “Lea, I wouldn’t let  _you_  get up there if I didn’t have complete confidence in you. I trust you. Now  _go_. Go tell fate to fuck itself.”  
  
Lea’s amazement at his approval tears at Chris’s heart, but Zach comes to the rescue before he says anything sappy. “Come on,” he tells Chris. “We’ll carry her.” Before Lea can protest, they hoist her up and seat her on their shoulders like a champion football player, processing through the crowd, who call out reassurances and encouragement.  
  
Di is waiting by the wheel, and they deposit Lea next to her. Chris and Zach give them each a hug for luck and then move back into the audience. Zach takes Chris’s hand, and Chris squeezes at it. He’s more nervous now than he was before his own performance.  
  
“She’ll be fine,” Zach says into his ear, although Chris can’t tell whether he means Lea or Dianna.  
  
Several spotlights flood the performance area to illuminate Lea’s throwing path. Di steps up onto the wheel, and Lea secures her. She spreads the paper veil over Dianna, and Chris feels sweat break out and run down the back of his neck.  _They’ve done this before_ , he reminds himself. He’s even seen it with his own eyes, their practice runs. But the atmosphere tonight is completely different. They’re all feeling the pressure.  
  
He becomes aware of John, standing next to him, tense and alert like a cautious bird. “She’ll be fine,” he says to John, echoing Zach’s words, and it makes Chris feel a little better to concentrate on someone else’s worries, even if they’re the same as his own. John nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off Lea as she positions herself.  
  
Chris knows the Guinness official must be around somewhere, but he can’t spare a second to look for him. Like John, his attention on the performance is unwavering. Zoë spins the wheel, and steps out of the way. Lea raises a knife.  
  
Chris closes his eyes. He hears the knives hit, ten solid thwacks, and gasps from the crowd but no screams. So far, so good, but his eyelids feel glued shut. He hears Lea walking up the front track, the tearing of paper, and the wave of cheering and applause from the audience.  
  
“She’s fine,” John breathes, clutching at Chris’s wrist, and Chris can open his eyes then, blinks into focus. Dianna is shining under the lights, her smile genuine and delighted as Lea unbuckles the restraints and helps her down. The two of them take their bow, and another, and yet another as the clapping continues.  
  
“I have this urge to throw my underwear at them,” John mutters.  
  
Zach leans behind Chris to say, “Please don’t.” He grins at Chris. “Hey, you okay?”  
  
It takes a few seconds for Chris to reply, but when he does, it’s sincere. “I’m okay,” he says. “I’m great, actually.”  
  
Di catches his eye as the house lights come up again and he gives her a big thumbs-up and mouths,  _Thrilling_. She winks back.  
  
  
***  
  
  
The next day, Di is straight back to work, although she’s told Lea to take the morning off and relax. They’re right on target funding-wise, but for some reason this makes Di even more stressed about opening night. She mutters about  _buffers_  and  _margins for error_. Chris decides leave her to it, and visits Lea mid-morning to congratulate her. He didn’t get time last night. After her success, Lea was swamped with media attention.  
  
Greenwood’s is quiet this morning, because many of the artists have gone into the city to drum up publicity with street performances. Zach has decided to work on his mime skills and has asked John to critique him.  
  
“Have some tea?” Lea says when Chris arrives at her trailer. She can’t stop smiling. Chris has never seen her so happy.  
  
“Thanks.” He watches her as she pours hot water over peppermint leaves, listens to her humming under her breath. “You were so great last night. Really.”  
  
She laughs. “I’m still high, can you tell? There’s always a rush from performing, but I’ve never stayed so happy for so long. Usually I’m nitpicking myself by this time, beating myself up over everything I didn’t do perfectly.”  
  
“I guess you’re relieved.”  
  
“Yes.” She pours the tea into two mugs through a tea-strainer, and sets one mug before Chris. “Yes, I had a horrible feeling something would go wrong. But now I’ve done it in public, I feel like the biggest challenge is over.” She slides a hand across the table and squeezes Chris’s fingers. “Thank you for your support.” She withdraws her hand.  
  
“You’re welcome. But I meant more - relieved because your contract for next season is a lock.”  
  
“Oh?” She raises her eyebrows.  
  
“Come on. No way is Bruce going to let a world record holder go, even if we don’t…uh…”  
  
“Even if we don’t what?”  
  
“Even if we don’t pull as big a crowd as usual on opening night.”  _Stupid_ , Chris tells himself. Even John can keep his mouth shut when it really counts.  
  
Lea is looking so troubled now that Chris keeps up the reassurance, but it doesn’t seem to help – she looks more consternated as he goes on. Finally, he asks, “What’s wrong?”  
  
She puts down her mug. “I didn’t want to say anything, because I’m still thinking it over.” Bewildered, Chris watches her slide out of the chair and rummage in a kitchen drawer. She brings out a sheaf of papers and drops them in front of him.  
  
It takes some time for the meaning of the words to sink into him, and when they do, the first thing he feels is anger.  
  
“Really?  _Really?_ ”  
  
“Don’t be mad,” she pleads. “Don’t be mad at me. I haven’t even told Zach yet, or Di. I haven’t made up my mind. But I never truly fit in here, even with last night, so…I thought it might be for the best.”  
  
If he says anything now, he’s going to regret it. Chris leaves his peppermint tea cooling on Lea’s kitchen table. She doesn’t try to stop him as he leaves without a word.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Zach is in some ridiculous yoga position when Chris clatters into their trailer. “Um,” Zach says, from upside down. “You look pissed.”  
  
“Lea.”  
  
Zach unbends and reseats himself on the floor, his face red with exertion. “What  _now?_ ”  
  
Chris starts and stops several times. “She’s had an offer,” he says at last. “And she hasn’t told you yet, and I guess I’m an asshole for telling you before she’s had a chance—” The look on Zach’s face tells Chris he’s about to break in and suggest maybe Chris  _should_  give Lea a chance to tell, so he finishes in a rush. “Last night, it must have been, after the world record. She got an offer from Murphy’s Circus on the East Coast, and she’s actually thinking it over. She didn’t tell the rep to shove it right away like she  _should_  have—”  
  
“Pretty sure that’s not fair,” Zach says, his voice reasonable and calm, and all it does is make Chris furious.  
  
“Fair? Fair would be Lea showing some fucking  _loyalty_  to Greenwood’s. We’re doing everything we can to get you two permanent positions…oh. Yeah. Yeah, we are,” Chris says, as Zach looks taken aback. “And now I’ve told you and it was supposed to be a surprise.”  
  
“Well,” Zach says, after a pause. “Consider me surprised. And in Lea’s defense, I doubt she has any idea either. Also, it’s hardly  _her_  fault someone’s trying to poach her.”  
  
“No, but she should have said no  _right away_ ,” Chris insists. He heads to the fridge, and hovers his hand over a beer, but it’s way too early in the day. He turns away to make coffee instead. Screw herbal teas. “I mean, is she crazy? She’s planning to go back across the country all on her own and try to make it from scratch again in another circus? She took  _months_  to settle in here, and she wouldn’t have  _you_  there to help smooth the way for her.”  
  
Zach says nothing.  
  
Chris pauses with the bag of coffee grounds in his hand. He puts in down on the bench and turns to look at Zach.  
  
“Oh,” Chris says.  
  
“Just hang on, before you go nuclear.”  
  
“I’m not going to go nuclear.” All Chris’s anger has faded away. The whole world has become smaller. All his plans, all his dreams for the future - he can see now how useless, how impossible they always were. “I understand.”  
  
“No, you really don’t.”  
  
“I do. You would go with her.”  
  
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t say  _anything_. You burst in here and lay all this news on me without giving me a minute to take it in, and now you’re—”  
  
“I’m what, Zach? What am I doing?” Chris feels heartsick.  
  
“You’re making assumptions all over the place. Simmer down for a second, okay?  
  
Chris makes for the door, but Zach stands in front of it before he can stomp out.  
  
“Dude. You have to give me more than a split-second to think about life-changing decisions.”  
  
Chris stares over Zach’s shoulder. “I didn’t realize it was going to  _require_  a life-changing decision. From you, anyway. That’s the whole point.”  
  
Zach sighs. “If it were you and Di. Think about that. What would you do, how would you feel?”  
  
“But it’s not me and Di.”  
  
“Lea is as dear to me as Dianna is to you.”  
  
 _And what about me?_ Chris wants to ask.  _Where do I stand in your hierarchy of People You Give a Shit About?_ “You’re a hypocrite, Zach. You spend your time telling me I need to give Di more space, let her make her own decisions, have a life  _apart_  from me. But the second Lea might take off for something new, you’re dumping everything here and — and—” He chokes off.  
  
Zach catches his hand. “I’m not dumping anything.”  
  
“Is this why you said what you did in jail? That I shouldn’t worry about the future of our relationship because  _everything changes?_  I guess I should’ve realized,” Chris says, his voice hollow. “Wherever Lea goes, you go. This was never a serious thing for you.”  
  
Zach is angry now, and Chris feels a perverse pleasure in it. It takes a lot to rattle Zach. “I swear to God, you and Lea were separated at birth. You’re exactly alike.”  
  
Chris stands there, his mouth hanging open like he’s a mechanical clown waiting for a ball to be thrown down his throat. “What?” he says eventually. “What in the hell does that mean?”  
  
“You both  _freak out_  if anything happens to disrupt your plans. She runs away from any bad situation so she doesn’t have to face it, and that’s exactly what you were trying to do just then, bolt out the door. You both assume the worst at all times. You both—”  
  
“Alright, alright,” Chris breaks in. The idea that his temperament is in any way like Lea’s leaves him with a pall of horror, but it also makes an unpleasant kind of sense. “And we both get panic attacks sometimes. So what? I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”  
  
Zach’s anger is gone. He’s smiling instead. “Well, because you two share one other thing. You’re both incredibly important to me.” He gives a tug on Chris’s hand. “Since you didn’t ask, my first thought was that we need to talk Lea down,  _if_  she’s thinking seriously about it, which I doubt.”  
  
Chris still feels miserable. “You said it yourself, Zach. Her first instinct is to run.”  
  
“You’re forgetting, we have a secret weapon. Dianna.”  
  
Relief hits Chris so hard that he sways forward into Zach. “Of course. Di would never leave Greenwood’s. And if you can’t convince Lea, Di sure as hell can.”  
  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Zach says, but smiles. He pulls Chris closer, kisses his neck. “So now will you chill the fuck out? Or do I have to suck your dick until you pass out?”  
  
“Um,” Chris says. “That last one. Definitely.”  
  
  
***

 

“Wake  _up_.”  
  
Chris grunts, pulled out of his dream. “Sorry. ’M I snoring?” He turns in the bed to look at Zach. His eyes feel bleary; Zach’s are frightened. “What?”  
  
“I can’t do it. I dreamed all night about messing it up and I  _can’t do it_.”  
  
It’s the morning of opening night, and Zach’s jitters seem to have set in.  
  
“Don’t be like that. Dreams are just…” Chris’s own is slipping away, back to the murky depths of his unconscious, but he remembers Mom was there, telling him something – something good. He can’t remember her words, but the dream-feeling lingers: a sense of calm and the knowledge that everything is working out as it should. “ _Bad_  dreams don’t mean anything,” he amends. “You’ll be fine. As soon as you brush your teeth and stop breathing into my face like that.”  
  
Zach frowns, and Chris figures that teasing isn’t going to break him out of his mood this morning.  
  
“What exactly did you dream?” Chris asks.  
  
Zach opens his mouth, seems to think better of it, and says, “I don’t know. Lea was prominent, telling me she’d told me so. ‘Didn’t I tell you so? I told you so. This is what happens when you don’t listen to what I tell you, blah blah  _blah_.’”  
  
“Did I let you fall, in the dream?”  
  
“We should get up,” Zach says, looking ashamed. “You’re right. Bad dreams don’t mean anything.”  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“Time for your run, and time for my yoga.”  
  
Zach bounds out of the bed and starts stretching, heads to the bathroom. “I just need to focus,” he calls. “And stay away from Lea,” he adds when he comes out again. He stands at the foot of the bed, looking at Chris with a morose expression. “She gets opening night jitters like you wouldn’t believe.”  
  
Worse than Zach’s? Chris cringes. “Noted,” he says.  
  
At least they don’t have to worry about Lea running away to join another circus. Dianna’s stricken expression when Lea told her, in conference with Zach and Chris in Di’s office, was enough to kill the idea there and then.  
  
“Maybe we should tell her we’re trying to get them permanent positions,” Di had said to Chris later. “If she realized what we were trying to do…”  She's already told several troupe members, although they're sworn to secrecy.  
  
“I kind of told Zach,” he admitted. “Accidentally,” he added, as she glared. “But let’s hold off on telling Lea. It’d be nice to surprise her, make a party out of it after opening night and tell her she’s permanent. Make her understand we really want her here. Bruce can give a whole speech and everything. He’s good at speeches.”  
  
Everything seems to be going well. After Zach’s fundraiser performance, Chris knew exactly what story he wanted to tell through fly trap on opening night. He and Zach have found a creative affinity, and they’ve refined their ideas into something spectacular. Anton has knocked up amazing costumes for all the trapeze performers. Their catch ratio has jumped to nine in ten; Lea is staying with Greenwood’s; and Chris is looking at the hottest guy in LA right now.  
  
Zach’s boxers are riding low on his hips. Chris puts his arms behind his head and gives Zach a slow up-and-down gaze.  
  
“There’s no time for that.”  
  
Chris shoots up to a sitting position. “Now I  _know_  there’s something wrong. There’s always time for that!”  
  
“We need every extra second for practice,” Zach says, running a fretful hand through his messy hair.  
  
“We’ve practiced all we can. We’ve got it. Besides, it’ll relax you.” Chris scoots himself forward, scrunching through the bed clothes, until he’s close enough to grab Zach’s hand. Zach collapses onto the bed without his usual grace, and Chris feels a frisson of worry. “You really do need to relax.”  
  
“Yoga will relax me,” Zach points out, but he doesn’t object to Chris kissing him.  
  
“Sure, but this is more fun.”  
  
Chris feels Zach’s lips moving under his own, and for a moment he thinks Zach is kissing back. Then it hits him. He pulls away. “Are you — are you _counting_?”  
  
“Um.”  
  
“You  _are_. You’re running the routine in your mind and counting your cues.”  
  
“Sorry.” Zach looks apologetic, but not like he’s planning to stop his mental practice any time soon.  
  
“I get it now. All that nonchalance was just a cover-up. You’re just as petrified as the rest of us.”  
  
“ _You_  don’t seem petrified. You’re all, hey, let’s fuck all morning and blow off practice!”  
  
Chris nuzzles into him. “Yeah. My nerves usually start right around showtime. But how about we postpone the sex till after performing, when we’re both high on how incredible we were. It’ll be amazing. Best fuck ever.”  
  
“What if we screw up in the show?” Zach asks, in a small voice.  
  
“Then we can have a heartbroken, rail-against-fate fuck. Either way, we win.”  
  
“Okay,” Zach says, sounding reassured. Chris has to bury his nose in Zach’s neck to hide his laughter.  
  
  
***  
  
  
It serves him right, Chris thinks, that he’s a wobbling ball of nerves on legs five minutes before he and Zach are due in the ring. He was fine with the opening act, where most of the performers are in the ring, tumbling and jumping and raising excitement among the audience. But this — this is his second coming. His true return to the ring. Di has already wished him luck before being dragged away by Lea to put on her performance make-up, but he wishes she could be here now.  
  
Chris puts the thought out of his mind and checks himself over in the full-length mirror next to the entrance. He’s dressed in a white leotard and leggings with sky blue highlights, and sequined wing outlines across his shoulder blades. An angel/devil routine was originally his idea, but he wishes now he’d made Zach the angel. Chris is feeling very exposed in the sheer white costume.  
  
He shakes his head and tears his eyes away from the mirror. His ass isn’t going to get any less bubble-like in the ten minutes left before he’s in front of the crowd. Di would tease him about it, make him laugh and relax a little before they went out.  
  
Zach appears next to him and takes his hand. In the flashing lights of the Big Top, Zach’s costume has lost all its garish appearance – the plastic sequins are now individual points of flashing fire and light, and the Lycra leotard and leggings gleam like satin, accentuating the lean, long muscles of his form. The deep red of his outfit is the color of blood, and so is his mouth, rubbed over with pigment to make sure it stands out. His eyes are huge, outlined in kohl and extended in an Egyptian style down his nose and out to his temples. His irises look black and wicked even as he smiles.  
  
“Holy hell,” Chris breathes out.  
  
“You don’t think there are too many sequins?” Zach asks anxiously. “I know I’m kind of flamboyant, but even this ex-cheerleader is feeling a little…shiny. There didn’t seem to be so many sequins before.”  
  
“No, you look – you look—” He even has sparkly horns rising out of his soft dark hair, and Chris feels the intense need to touch them, hand reaching out involuntarily to caress, and Zach ducks his head to give him access. “Zach, you look…”  
  
Zach gives a sly grin at Chris’s crotch. “Yeah, I can see how I look. You know, maybe we  _should’ve_  got off this morning. In fact, if you want to unload right now, we have time.”  
  
“We most certainly do not,” Chris says. “Although it’s nice to see you’ve bounced back.”  
  
The reminder dampens Zach perhaps a little  _too_  much, so Chris adds, “Besides, that would make everything worse. We’re going to need the tension to help us focus. And later, Champion Fucking. Right?” He does fold his hands over his crotch.  
  
“Alright,” Zach sighs. The crowd roars again, and the vibrations through the ground tell them that Zoë is thundering around the ring on Ulysses. “Omigod,” Zach says, and Chris could swear he’s gone a shade paler under the white pan-stick. He’s looking up into the canopy of the Big Top, at the trapeze rigging. “I’m completely insane. What in the hell was I thinking? I can’t do this.”  
  
“Zach.” Chris takes his shoulders and they look each other in the eye. “I’ll be right there to catch you. And I need you to help me too, so don’t lose it. We’re a team and we need to put each other first.”  
  
“I really want to kiss you right now, but I guess I can’t,” Zach says. “Make-up.” He sounds so crestfallen that Chris leans forward and carefully presses their lips together. What the hell, as long as they don’t move it won’t smudge, and anyway – it’s worth it.  
  
“Kiss him any longer and he might revert to being a frog,” says an acerbic voice behind them. “And you can decide between you which one I’m referring to.” It’s Karl, sauntering up to them. “Good luck, mate,” he adds, as Chris opens his family’s box to rub extra rosin onto his hands.  
  
The music cue sounds, and Chris runs out. He’s on silks first, performing much the same routine as he did for the fundraiser, but with a story to tell this time.  He’s an angel, curious about what lies outside the boundaries of his experience. At the end, Chris plunges with even more force than on the fundraiser night, and he hears a few genuine screams from the crowd as the ring goes black as he stops just before the ground.  
  
The angel has fallen.  
  
 _It’s a great idea,_  he’d argued to Bruce, Simon and Di.  _Scare them and they’ll spread the word, talk about how terrified they were. We might as well capitalize on my dangerous reputation._  Simon and Di were easy wins, and helped plead his case to Bruce. Bruce surrendered in the end, unable to resist the combination of financial and artistic arguments battering his ramparts.  
  
The spotlight picks up Zach on the other side of the ring, ready to perform his aerial hoop routine. Chris runs backstage for a moment to wash the rosin off his hands, dry them, and prepare them with mag for the trapeze. A few seconds later he’s back in the wings, watching Zach’s performance.  
  
Zach sits in his hoop in mid air, dolefully swinging his carmine-colored tail in one hand, around and around until a sense of sadness has permeated the Big Top. Chris can feel the audience aura sagging in sympathy. Zach’s body language projects sorrow and a sense of inevitability, telling the audience his story.  This demon has seen it all before, and he’ll see it all again.  
  
Chris staggers out, exaggerating his movements, holding one hand up to his head.  
  
Zach turns to see what the audience is whispering about, and does a double-take Chris bets could be seen from the moon, let alone the back seats. He hangs off the side of the ring, stretching as far as he can, watching Chris wandering below. His timid wave of greeting, highlighted by a xylophone tinkle from the musicians, makes the crowd laugh, but Chris pretends not to notice him.  
  
Zach becomes a puckish figure, swinging deftly around on his ring in more and more outlandish tricks to attract attention, and at last hangs by his feet from the ring, right in front of Chris’s face, so that they come nose-to-upside-down-nose. Chris falls backwards to the ground, surprised. He tips his head to one side, uncertain what to make of this friendly demon.  
  
Zach waves again. It’s unscripted, and it makes Chris laugh along with the crowd.  
  
The ring descends.  Zach hops off, and pulls Chris up from the ground to dust him off. He keeps dusting until Chris pushes him gently away. Zach withdraws as though he’s been told off, his feelings hurt.  
  
Chris follows him around the ring, trying to make amends, but never quite catching up to the frolicking devil. Zach is so playful that Chris has to fight not to smile; he can’t help it, though, when Zach’s tail comes away in his hand after he grabs it. The laughter from the audience is deafening as Chris smothers his smile and acts horrified, and Zach bolts.  John suggested the detachable tail, to strip Zach of the accessory before flying, and Chris will have to congratulate him on the idea later.  
  
Zach is scampering up the ladder to the trapeze platform now, where Jennifer and Rachel are waiting, outfitted as devils as well. They huddle together in a group hug, watching the angel to see what he’ll do next.  
  
Chris throws Zach’s tail aside, and runs to the opposite ladder. He’s up on the platform before he knows it, next to John, and haloed in the spotlight.  
  
Now comes the hard part.  
  
Chris dusts his hands with mag again and then John passes him the trapeze. John doesn’t say anything, for which Chris is grateful. Any  _good lucks_  right now would just make things worse. Before his body can catch up to his thoughts, he swings out, turns, hangs by the knees, ready to catch.  
  
Chris swings by himself for a moment while Zach pretends to be in two minds about trusting him. He sits up on the trapeze and makes a  _Come on!_ gesture, and then drops from his knees again. He judges his own timing, gives the call to jump, and Jen and Rachel pretend to shove Zach off the platform.  
  
Zach easily gets up to height, and releases at the zenith of his swing. Chris loses sight of him for a moment, but he’s there in position when he needs to be, and Zach’s hands close on his wrists. Chris seizes him so tightly that he’s probably going to have bruises tomorrow, but he’s safe and secure. One back swing, and then Chris lifts him, watches him turn in space to grab the other trapeze, and safely dismount on the platform. The roar from the crowd swells as Zach takes a theatrical bow.  
  
After that, Chris relaxes into the performance, watching as the family of devils persuade each other to try flying with the angel. The audience is screaming encouragement, and Zach plays to them even from the height of the trapeze. Chris finds himself laughing along with the crowd, in between catching the three of them and throwing them back. They’re all at the top of their game tonight, in the zone.  
  
The drum roll sounds for Zach’s climactic trick, a double-salto demi-tour. He’s excellent by now with the somersaults, but his half-twist at the end has been hit-and-miss during practice. He nails it tonight, controlled but flowing, like he’s been doing it all his life.  
  
Chris makes a faultless catch, and then tosses Zach back up into the air for a double twist and salto as he drops to the net to end the performance. The applause when he swings down to the sawdust is just about deafening, even in the canopy. Chris sits up on his trapeze and slows to a sway so that first Rachel, and then Jen, can perform their own signature dismounts from the other side, and fall to the net.  
  
It’s his turn now. He swings up as high as he can. He’s supposed to do a triple-salto and drop to the net, but tonight he thinks he could do it – he could make four.  
  
 _Hubris_ , he reminds himself.  
  
But he could  _try_.  
  
The worst that will happen is he’ll look ungainly falling into the net.  
  
Before he can change his mind, he releases the bar at the top of its arc, and spins as fast as he can. One – two – three – he hears the collective  _oooooh_ from the audience – and  _four_. He even lands well, on his back in the net, and laughs as he bounces back up towards the canopy. He feels like he could stay there if he wanted, floating in mid-air.  
  
He’s on the ground too soon, taking his bows with the flyers. Lying nearby he sees Zach’s abandoned tail, and jogs over to pick it up. He returns it to Zach with a flourish, and it draws another cheer from the crowd. Zach hooks it around his neck and pulls him in for an exuberant hug, and murmurs, “I am going to fuck you so hard you see God.”  
  
Startled, Chris laughs, and accepts hugs from Jen and Rachel in a euphoric daze. They’re hustled off by Ringmaster Simon, who introduces the next act.  
  
Backstage, everyone he passes congratulates Chris, and Zach can barely speak a coherent sentence, he’s so high on achievement. Jen and Rachel head off to rehydrate, but Zach holds Chris back.  
  
“In here,” he orders, pulling Chris into a small dressing room. Or, more accurately, a small corner hidden from view by a few hanging sheets.  
  
“We can’t—” Chris starts to point out, but Zach lunges at him, kisses him, squeezes his ass.  
  
“ _Whoa!_ ” comes a voice behind them, and they break apart in consternation. “Jeez, guys, you  _have_  a room,” Zoë says, sounding annoyed and tired. She’s holding her next costume change over her arm. “Some of us are actually trying to work, you know?”  
  
“There really is no privacy around here,” Zach says, as they troop back to their trailer. He untangles his horned headband. “We should go on vacation after the season’s done.”  
  
“I’ve never really been on vacation,” Chris says. “We just hang around Greenwood’s in the off-season. All the traveling during the year makes us want to settle in for a while. Where would we go?”  
  
“New York,” Zach says at once. “To see Mom and Joe. I miss them, and they want to meet you.”  
  
“They do?”  
  
Zach pauses at the door to the trailer. “Well, yeah, they do. I’ve told them a lot about you.”  
  
“You have?” Chris is grinning, a big, stupid, love-struck grin.  
  
“Yeah, I have. And stop looking so smug. We only have half an hour before Lea and Di’s act. Get in here so I can violate you.”  
  
“Wait.” Chris pauses on the step as a thought occurs to him. “New York.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
New York City. It’s not so far from the address Bruce gave him. Wouldn’t even take a whole day to drive there. They could stay overnight, maybe, come back the next day after seeing…  
  
“Chris? Champion fucking?”  
  
“Yes,” Chris says decisively, and slams the trailer door behind him.  
  
Zach pushes Chris back up against the closed door and drops to his knees.  
  
Chris says, “Shouldn’t I take off my – oh.  _Yeah_.” Zach’s mouth is on him, spit soaking through the spandex, and through the uncomfortable thong he wears underneath to keep everything in place. He’s filling out the front pouch of it under Zach’s tongue, and realizes he’s never going to feel any sense of security when wearing it again. It does  _nothing_  to hide his excitement.  
  
“Wait, this is kind of disgusting,” Chris says. He’s still sweaty and sticky all over from performing, and he’s pretty sure his crotch doesn’t smell like roses right now.  
  
“I know, right?” Zach says. “ _Filthy_.” He redoubles his efforts.  
  
“Fuck,” Chris groans, and gives up the protest. It’s good, but the sensation is dulled by the fabric. “Wait, let me—” He pulls at the neckline of his leotard and frees his arms.  
  
Zach’s mouth and chin are stained red with make-up. He’s smeared it all over himself and all over Chris’s white Lycra-covered crotch.  
  
“I want to fuck you in your costume,” Zach says.  
  
“How exactly are you planning on getting your cock inside this outfit?”  
  
“Details,” Zach scoffs, waving a hand. He frowns. “We could cut holes?”  
  
“It’s already stained from your freaking lipstick, and that’ll be enough to deal with later. I’m not patching up my damn ass as well.” Chris pulls off the leotard, ignoring Zach’s pout, until he’s down to leggings. “Some other time, I’ll put on an old costume and you can rip it open and fuck me silly.”  
  
Zach gives a little moan at his words, and Chris strips down his leggings. “Stop,” Zach says, grabbing him. Chris has his thumbs hooked in the hip-straps of his thong, which is a disagreeable pinky-beige color. Zach’s eyes are huge as he stares at it, twists Chris round to get a view of the back. “Oh, no. You are  _not_  taking  _that_  off.”  
  
Well, compromise is an important part of any relationship. Chris falls back against the door again and lets Zach fish his junk out of the pouch. His sweaty palms slide down the door as Zach tongues him and sucks on his cockhead. His knees shake as the adrenaline from performing starts to wear off. Zach stops deep-throating him and looks up.  
  
“Knees buckling? I am so impressed with me right now.”  
  
“Shut up,” Chris laughs, but it ends on a groan. “Maybe we should lie down.”  
  
“Nah.” Zach stands up, and shuffles Chris more upright against the door. “Just wait right there for two seconds.” He strips off his own leotard, but leaves his leggings on, and then disappears for a moment into the bathroom. When he comes out, he holds a condom and lube. He pushes up against Chris and says, “You were  _so_  good tonight,” right in his ear, and he makes it sounds like dirty talk. “A perfect angel.”  
  
Chris wriggles until he can feel Zach’s hard dick pressing up against his own. “Take these off.” He tugs at the waistband of Zach’s leggings.  
  
Zach pulls them down, but only to his thighs. He’s not wearing any underwear. Chris feels lightheaded. “Can I suck you?”  
  
“No.” Zach grins. “Maybe later.” He hooks an arm under Chris’s thigh and lifts his leg. Chris wraps it around Zach’s waist.  
  
“Like this?”  
  
“Yes.” He presses the foil packet into Chris’s fingers while he slides his other hand behind, down under Chris’s thong. “And let’s get this out of the way,” he purrs, pushing it to one side. Chris is grateful for Zach’s weight holding him against the door, because as it turns out, his knees are not immune to buckling.  
  
Something cold and squishy smears down his crack and he grunts in surprise. Zach’s slippery fingers find his asshole and massage.  
  
Zach says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess you had no idea how this all worked, being such a pure heavenly creature and all. This is what we call lube.” Fingers are working their way inside him, an easy route with Chris’s leg hitched up, spreading him open.  
  
“You’ve been planning out cheesy role-play sex ever since I suggested this routine, haven’t you?”  
  
“Well, we haven’t had much luck finding the spider-web tattoo. And angels and devils are just as hot as tattooed prisoners.”  
  
Zach has a point. “Okay, fine. I guess this angel has  _fallen_  for you. Get it?” Chris raises his eyebrows, but Zach remains impassive. “No? Okay. How about, please fuck me with your, uh, mighty instrument of evil?”  
  
“ _Those_  are the best lines you can come up with?” Zach sighs. “But, yes. Yes, I will. As soon as you get that rubber on me and I make sure you’re nice and ready.” He withdraws, adds another finger. Chris rests his head back against the door as he feels himself sliding down on Zach’s hand, opening up. His fingers take a while to cooperate opening up the rubber, but it’s great to hear Zach’s intake of breath when Chris wraps a hand round his dick, sheathes him.  
  
“Come on,” he breathes, and wraps his other leg around Zach’s waist as well, writhing to find the right angle. “Fuck my angelic asshole.”  
  
It’s the one line Zach doesn’t complain about. He lines up, and then slowly pushes all the way in. His cock has never felt so thick. Chris clutches at his shoulder, winds an arm more firmly around his neck. “You ready?” Zach pants.  
  
“Yeah. Come on. Corrupt me.” Chris smirks at Zach’s groan.  
  
“That’s – that’s another  _terrible_ —”  
  
Chris raises himself and drops again, forcing Zach’s cock ever-deeper into his ass, and Zach forgets whatever he was going to say.  
  
It’s a hard, frantic,  _loud_  fuck, but Chris is reassured by the thought that everyone else will still be in the Top. He doesn’t hold back his vocals like he normally does, and it’s not like he’s saying words, just making noises, but Zach seems to appreciate it. Just when Chris is sure Zach will have to let him drop, he stops, and slides a hand in between them, grasps Chris’s dick.  
  
“I want you to shoot all over that beautiful belly so I can lick it off you when I’m done.”  
  
Chris’s head  _thunks_ against the door, and for a few moments the whole world consists of the stretch and rub in his ass, the hand on his cock. The shout he gives when he comes sounds animalistic, choking off at the end, and one of his legs slips down, his heel banging into the door. Zach is still holding up his other leg and doesn’t let him fall. After a few more ruthless thrusts he convulses, slamming Chris so hard against the door that the whole trailer shudders.  
  
Somehow they disengage without injury, and stumble to the bed.  
  
“Jesus H. Christ,” Zach rasps.  
  
“I think you mean, ‘Hail Satan,’” Chris replies with a yawn. “And by the way, my belly is  _way_  smaller these days.” Well, a  _little_  smaller, anyway.  
  
“Mm. I miss it.” Zach rolls over and, just as he said, starts licking up the mess Chris made all over his stomach.  
  
Chris falls into a light doze.  
  
They end up arriving late and unkempt for Di and Lea’s act. Half their make-up is gone, rubbed off in an attempt to clean up their faces, and Chris is in an entirely different outfit.  
  
Chris feels terrible when he realizes they’ve missed the whole set, but John stops them at the backstage entrance before he can make his way over to Di. She’s sitting down among a small cluster of people – congratulating her, Chris thinks at first, but John’s expression says otherwise.  
  
“Don’t freak out,” John says.  
  
“What the  _fuck_ —”  
  
“I said  _don’t_  freak out,” John repeats, but Chris shoves past him and runs over to Di. Her stylized Greek mask from the performance is lying next to her foot, the black eyeholes staring up at nothing. Dianna is holding a hand towel to her inner thigh. It’s dim backstage, but Chris can still see a red stain on the towel.  
  
“Don’t freak out,” is the first thing she says as well. “We just had a small accident.” She pulls the towel away and Chris sees a long but shallow cut across her flesh. “Last knife before she pulled down the paper. We were trying a different pose for the Veiled Wheel tonight, a starfish. We should have practiced more before we tried it live.”  
  
Chris takes a deep breath and counts to ten. “Do you need stitches?” he asks at last. Di shakes her head. She looks more irritated at the attention she’s garnered than shaken up by the cut.  
  
“I’m fine. It’s just a minor cut; it’s already stopped bleeding.” Chris crouches down to check, but she’s telling the truth. It’s red and angry-looking, but there’s no fresh blood.  
  
“Where’s Lea?” Zach asks beside him.  
  
Dianna begins to get upset. “I don’t know. She ran off. She held it together until we got backstage, and then she just took off outside. You have to find her, please. I’m worried she thinks it’s worse than it is. I’m worried…” She trails off, but Chris knows what she’s worried about.  
  
He’s worried, too.  
  
He stands up. Zach looks agitated, and he’s turning to look at the exit. Chris says, “Di needs a bandage. John, can you—”  
  
“On it.” John already has the first aid kit open and is pulling out antiseptic and cotton balls.  
  
“Lea’s the one you should—” Dianna begins again, but he cuts her off.  
  
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” He takes Zach by the hand and leads him back out of the Big Top.


End file.
